


Shades of Black and White

by GotTheSilver



Category: Trainspotting (Movies)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Drug Use, M/M, T2 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-08 00:06:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10373058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GotTheSilver/pseuds/GotTheSilver
Summary: Post T2.*“You do.”  Simon lets out a sigh, clasping his hands together on his lap like he’s some kind of fucking choirboy.  “There’s no shame in it, Mark.  You left this, built a safe life, had it fall apart on you, and now you’re bitter that you’re stuck back here.  With me.  Admit it.  You want me to take the money.  Want me to make it safe for you again.”*or, Mark and Simon will always end up here.





	

**Author's Note:**

> because T2 is a love story and I waited twenty years for it.
> 
> spoilers, obviously.

They were pricks, using Spud’s stash in front of him, and Mark knew it. Hell, Simon knew it, but didn’t give a shit, his morals haven’t improved in twenty years. Mark’s not sure if he gives a shit. Hard to give a shit about anything when you’ve got your first hit in twenty years running through your veins and your best mate by your side. Even if he is a fucking cunt.

*

Betrayal. That’s what it always fucking comes down to between them, always has, always will. Mark can’t be surprised Simon didn’t tell him Begbie was out, he would’ve done the same if the situations were reversed, if Simon had been the one to take the money and run. Now, they’ve both been betrayed; Veronkia having run off with the money, leaving him and Simon looking like a pair of sad, old fuckers with nothing to show.

Pretty fucking accurate.

*

The television’s blaring some shite, the dog ends spilling over the ashtray that neither he nor Simon have bothered to empty in days. Thirty years. It keeps ringing in his fucking head, thirty fucking years and he’s going to be stuck here with Simon running scams. And the pub, can’t forget the pub. The site of what was going to be some kind of future according to Simon, but what’s now still surrounded by rubble and might be the next fucking thing to go.

“How much they offering?” he asks Simon again. He asked earlier, but didn’t get a response aside from Simon throwing the papers at him and yelling that he’s not selling.

There’s a slow turn of Simon’s head that draws Mark in. “Not enough, Rents,” Simon says, eyes locked with Mark’s. “Not nearly fucking enough. They want to build some fucking shopping centre, turn the pub into a cunty wine bar.”

“Like the one where you tried to sell me on the brothel?”

“Sauna.”

“Brothel.”

“Fuck off,” Simon says, mouth twisted into a smirk as he looks Mark over. “You think I should take it.”

“No.”

“You do.” Simon lets out a sigh, clasping his hands together on his lap like he’s some kind of fucking choirboy. “There’s no shame in it, Mark. You left this, built a safe life, had it fall apart on you, and now you’re bitter that you’re stuck back here. With me. Admit it. You want me to take the money. Want me to make it _safe_ for you again.”

That last sentence drips off Simon’s lips and Mark looks away. “Would it be so bad?”

There’s silence and then Simon’s on his feet. “Yes,” he yells. “Yes it fucking would be that bad, fucking Christ. Go back to fucking Amsterdam if that’s what you want, fuck.”

Mark rubs his face with his hands, fingers scratching across the faint stubble and shakes his head. “I’m fucking tired.”

“And?”

“And I want tae sleep,” Mark says. “That okay with you?”

“Fine.” Simon crosses his arms across his chest. “You’re already on the couch.”

“Are you fucking kidding?”

“Couch is perfectly comfortable, you’ve slept worse places.”

“When I was twenty, I’m forty fucking six, I’m no’ sleeping on the couch.” Mark gets up and walks towards the closed door. “Bedroom through here?” He doesn’t wait for an answer before his hand grabs the handle and opens it.

“Took my girlfriend, now you’re taking my bed?”

Mark turns around, turning his back on the piles of knock off designer clothes that are strewn across Simon’s room. “Took her? Is she here? Is she? No, she’s back home with our money that, with the help of our dear friend Spud, she stole from us. Your girlfriend, who you never even bloody shagged, ripped us off, so yes, I’m taking your fucking bed. Take some more cocaine, Simon, then you won’t need to sleep.”

“Fuck you,” Simon says, fingers absently fiddling with the silver chain around his neck. “Feeling guilty about the skag? Realising you’re still an addict? That you’re no better than the rest of us? Tell me Mark, are you craving it?”

Mark swipes his tongue over his bottom lip. “Might be.”

“And how do you propose you deal with that?”

“Same way I did twenty years ago.”

“Which is?”

“Find something else to be addicted to.”

*

Mark’s not surprised when he’s woken up by Simon crashing half on top of him. “Cunt,” he mutters, ignoring the satisfied smile on Simon’s face—eyes closed in a mockery of sleep—when he realises Mark isn’t going to kick him out of the bed. Rolling his eyes, Mark tugs the duvet up and tries to go back to sleep, Simon’s leg wedged against his.

*

Aesthetics, that’s what it was. What it always has been. Back when they were teenagers, Simon always looked good, Mark would’ve been an idiot not to notice, and he wasn’t an idiot despite what his life choices may have suggested. Mark always wondered if Simon spent more money on bleach than he did on skag; given how often Simon kicked the habit, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

Even now, Simon has it, they go out clubbing and somehow Simon still manages to attract girls half his age.

Mark doesn’t say a word when it never goes further than a blow job in the toilets.

*

“What did you do?” he asks one night, when it’s quiet at the pub. Not that it ever gets busy, but when it’s just them and one customer who is still nursing the pint Simon pulled him when he walked in, Mark reckons he can call it quiet.

“When?”

“When I was gone.”

Simon picks up the pool cue and Mark has to stop himself from flinching, knowing exactly how fucking deadly Simon can be with it. Leaning over the table, sleeves of his stone grey shirt rolled up, Simon takes his shot. The ball doesn’t go in. “Fuck,” Simon mutters. “Why do you want to know?”

“Dunno.”

“Will it make you feel better? Assuage your guilt?”

“No.”

Simon lays the cue across the table. “Then why the fuck do you want to know?”

“Fucksake,” Mark says, throwing back the cheap vodka. It burns the back of his throat and yet he pours himself another glass from the bottle Simon had left on the table.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“You’ve got a son.”

Simon walks over and grabs the bottle, taking a large swig before putting it back down. The opening bars of Train In Vain come out of the jukebox and Simon leans against the wall. “Knocked up a woman. I tried, Rents, I did, but the whore didn’t like my work and I couldn’t fucking stand her. So, she left.” Simon reaches for the glass Mark hasn’t touched and knocks back what was in there. “That enough for you?”

“Aye,” Mark says. “Didn’t think you—”

“Would want to try and be a father after letting my daughter die?” Simon turns the glass over in his hands before throwing it at the wall with such force some of the shards double back and Mark has to cover his eyes. “Still. Probably for the best, aye?”

*

Another day on the couch, another movie playing across Simon’s giant television, another bunch of hours passing with nothing to do.

Mark’s dimly aware that at some point he’s going to have to do something for money. He gets an angry call from his ex wife telling him he has to come and clear his shit out or else she’s throwing it out.

He has a flight back in two days.

“You coming back?” Simon asks, picking at fish and chips he brought home.

“Haven’t got anywhere else to go,” Mark says. “I’m back sleeping in my childhood bedroom.”

“Thought you were sleeping in my bed,” Simon mutters around a mouthful of chips.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Simon says loudly. “Go, don’t worry about me.”

“Fucksake.” Mark kicks Simon’s leg. “I’m not leaving for two days, stop being a cunt.”

“Last time you tried to leave you showed up at my door.”

Mark tips his head back, looking at the ceiling. “She’s gonna trash my stuff.” There’s no response from Simon aside from a hand resting on Mark’s thigh too fucking near his crotch, and all Mark can think is, not now. Not right before he has to go back and sort his shit out. There’s a stillness in the flat, Mark knows Simon’s waiting for him to do something, anything, and when he doesn’t, Simon exhales, moving his hand from Mark’s thigh.

“Well,” Simon says, quiet, dangerously so. “When you get back, I’ll be here.”

In a way, that’s what Mark’s afraid of.

*

Amsterdam means nothing to him anymore, just an empty shell of what was once a future. He barely speaks to anyone, as soon as he walked into the apartment to get his stuff, his wife handed him the formal redundancy letter from his workplace. Ex workplace. Ex wife. Ex home. Ex, ex, ex, as if he’s ceasing to exist in the world.

It somehow seems apt that he’s going back to Edinburgh. Back to Simon.

*

When Mark lets himself into the flat, he finds Simon on the couch, almost in the same position as when he left, but now there’s works on the table and Simon’s got that look on his face that Mark knows all too well.

“Fucksake,” Mark says, dropping his bag on the floor, his suitcase full of his sad collection of belongings left by the door. “Prick,” he says, kicking Simon’s leg. “I was gone for 72 hours, Simon.”

“And in that 72 hours I thought about the fact that not only did the woman I love steal hundred thousand fucking pound from me, it was also a loan that I’m gonnae have to pay back, a loan you got me into, a loan I don’t have the fucking money for. Skag seemed like a fucking good choice after thinking about that for two days.”

Mark looks Simon over and sits down, almost on Simon’s lap, but not quite. “Good stuff?”

“Decent.”

“Gonna do it again?”

“You suddenly my ma? And no. Maybe. I don’t fucking know.”

“This is pathetic,” Mark says, staring at the television. It’s on mute, Goldfinger playing, and it feels like no fucking time has passed at all in twenty years. “What do you want to do?”

Simon doesn’t say a fucking word, just cups Mark’s crotch in his hand and slides off the sofa, sinking to his knees and pushing Mark’s legs apart. “This.”

Staring down at Simon, Mark doesn’t say a fucking word, just watches as Simon raises an eyebrow at him before he unzips Mark’s jeans. Being the centre of Simon’s attention has never been anything other than fucking intimidating, and it’s not got any less in the time they’ve spent apart.

“Cunt,” Mark mutters as Simon spits in his hand before wrapping it around Mark’s cock.

“Careful, Rents,” Simon says with a grin. “Not wise to piss off a man who has his hand around your dick.”

“Fuck you.”

“You think you can get it up again after this?” Simon asks, slowly stroking Mark’s dick. “Need a bit of what Mikey sells if you want that, I reckon.”

Mark rolls his eyes. “Gonna put your mouth to better use, or what?”

There’s nothing but the slow, considering gaze of Simon as he looks up at Mark, his bottom lip dragging over the head of Mark’s dick before he takes him in. Simon’s lost nothing of what made him such an intoxicating person back when they were teenagers, fumbling around half stoned because when you’re that age, you just need a fucking release, you don’t care where it’s coming from. Then, older, nodding out on the same mattress and Mark waking up with Simon’s hands down his jeans; a quick screw up against a toilet wall when they were out, before Simon would go and find some lass to shag. It was, like everything was at the time, fleeting and something neither of them tried to think too much about.

Now, Simon’s not taking his eyes off Mark as he blows him, and every fibre of Mark’s being knows that this isn’t like then. The fact that after twenty goddamn years, Mark’s ended up back here, with Simon, says more than he’d like to admit, more than his brain can piece together as Simon’s mouth and hands work him to completion.

“Fuck,” Mark breathes out, skin clammy with sweat as Simon rocks back on his heels, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Still got it,” Simon says with a wink.

Mark’s eyes go from Simon’s face to the works on the table, before looking back at Simon. “Aye,” he says. “Guess you do at that.”

“What now?” Simon asks, picking up the bottle of vodka by the side of the sofa and taking a swig before passing it to Mark.

“Fuck knows,” Mark says with a slight grin, hands wrapped around the bottle. “See what happens.”

And somehow, that’s half the fucking fun with them. Even at forty fucking six.


End file.
